Corfe Mullen to Cuba: Puno: The Unfinished City

Tuesday 19^th April

Like most of the South American cities laid out by the Spanish, Puno has a main square with a cathedral on one side. Running off that is Lima Street, full of tourist agencies, restaurants and bars. But away from that small central area, the most striking feature is that the city is unfinished. Most of the buildings are reinforced concrete frames with red brick infill which has yet to be rendered, some of the windows are there but most are just empty openings. Apparently people buy the land, erect a shell, making a small part habitable and then wait until they have more money before proceeding to make more of it habitable. And it seems there are tax incentives to not finish the building. I like to think that all the new buildings meet earthquake resistance standards but I have my doubts. Eventually I found the tourist information office where the helpful woman behind the desk pointed me in the direction of a local agency where I booked a boat trip to one of the floating islands of Lake Titicaca for tomorrow. Later in the evening had an excellent dinner in Mojsa, a restaurant on the main square.

Main Square and Cathedral

Unfinished City

Unfinished Street

Wednesday 20^th April

Was picked up from the hotel for boat trip on Lake Titicaca. Once on the boat we were treated to some pan pipe music before heading off through reed beds to one of the floating islands. They are inhabited by the Uros people who originally moved to them for defensive purposes. Once on the island our guide, helped by two of the local people, showed us how the islands are formed of bundles of reeds which need to be continually replenished as the older ones become waterlogged. The white fleshy parts of the living reeds are edible but taste very bland and if given the option I would go for steak and chips any day. The women of the island were selling stuff and I felt I really ought to make a contribution to the local economy. Yes, it did feel a bit of a tourist trap but, realistically, tourism is the only hope for them to retain their way of life. Our guide told us that while many of the young people leave the islands for a better life on land others come back when they realise that living on land is a struggle if you don’t have the necessary skills. Adjacent to the island was a floating school so the children do get some education. From the first island we took one of the locally crafted reed boats to another island where there was a small café and a reed “watchtower” which provided a bird’s eye view. With more than three people in it, the watchtower felt a bit wobbly so I didn't stay too long.

Can't Leave without some Music

Navigating through the Reed Beds in Lake Titicaca

Floating Island

Dwellings on the Floating Island

Uros Mother and Children

Uros Islanders

Reed Boat

From there we headed back to Puno where, at the side of the jetty where our boat moored, I saw a sign advertising the Yavari ship museum. Problem was that the ship was on the opposite side of a narrow waterway and there didn’t seem to be any access to it. I had a look round a nearby free museum all about Lake Titicaca but the man in charge didn’t seem to know how you got to the Yavari and suggested phoning the number on the sign. I was just about to do so when the boatman who had taken us to the floating island offered to take me across and back for 20 sols. Once aboard the Yavari I was given a fantastic personal tour of the ship which has been recently renovated to full working order and will be moving in the next couple of weeks to a new home in the lake next to the Libertador, a five star hotel on the shore. My guide, whose name I forgot to note, explained that the move provided a financially secure future for the ship but took it away from its current excellent, if inaccessible, location at the wharf where the railway line connected to a train ferry which carried trains to Bolivia. The Yavari was built for the Peruvian navy in London in 1862, disassembled into nearly 3000 parts and transported by ship to Arica, then a port in Peru, now in Chile as a result of a war between the two countries. From Arica the parts were transported by train to Tacna and then the remaining 350 km to Puno on the backs of mules. It was 1870 before the ship was launched. It originally had a steam engine powered by dried llama dung but that was replaced in 1914 by a four cylinder internal combustion engine of a type now obsolete, a “hot bulb” engine, which has been restored to full operation.

http://www.yavari.org/en/history/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yavari_(ship)

It was a fascinating tour of the ship. Around it are the makings of a perfect industrial heritage museum, several other ships, a dredger, the old port buildings and assorted dockyard paraphernalia. It is all owned by PeruRail which appears to be letting it decay. As a tourist Mecca it might not match Machu Picchu but would be a major attraction for Puno. According to my guide the railway ferry was discontinued in the 1980’s, unable to compete with a new road connecting Peru to Bolivia.